The Avatar Dies, The Avatar is Reborn
by St Jon of PDX
Summary: Set during the finale, this is AU. What if Aang had been overcome while attempting to spirit bend the Phoenix King? AU. Toph’s POV. COMPLETE. CHARACTER DEATH.


The Avatar Dies, The Avatar is Reborn

By: St Jon of PDX

AU. A short glimpse into the Avaverse during the finale and a response to a discussion I had w/ another fan. What if Aang had died while spirit-bending Ozai. Toph's POV.

***

It is the most sacred prayer of the four kingdoms; or it was before the war. I don't know if they still teach it in the Fire Nation and there aren't any more Air Nomads left to learn it, but in the Earth Kingdom it is still taught to every child—the first prayer that is memorized, the first concept that is explained. Birth-death-and rebirth.

The mourning prayer.

_The Avatar dies, The Avatar is reborn._

I may be blind, but I was the first to know that Aang was gone.

Even crippled as I was by the chasm of empty sky surrounding the airship and the violent tremors that wrenched through its frame, I knew. I felt it, real and viscerally, in every part of my body. It was like freefalling—like I had jumped off the side of the airship me and Sokka and Suki had just commandeered. And it was like being trapped. I could feel every one of my organs being squeezed and compressed, feel something reach inside me and squeeze my heart in its grip. I was drowning and flying and being crushed to death all at once. And I have no idea what part of that told me that Aang had died—but I _knew_.

_The Avatar dies, The Avatar is reborn._

We'd been fighting a group of Fire Nation soldiers—benders—when it hit me. I couldn't even stay standing, not that it mattered. I knew from the agonized screams of the firebenders that I wasn't the only one that felt Aang's passing. I wondered at the time if to them it felt like being burned alive.

I passed out then. Didn't wake up until I felt strong, callused hand shaking me back to consciousness. I could feel them both—Sokka and Suki—hovering over me. I could sense them—feel Sokka's hand on me, hear their heartbeats, smell the sharp scent of perspiration—and I knew they had no idea. It was the first time I forgot to be jealous of Suki.

I was numb. I knew I should be devastated, sad, angry; but all I could feel was this dull pressure in my chest and, locked behind it, something dark and painful and oppressive. I wanted to cry but couldn't—it was too big. I wanted to scream and fight and _rage_ against a world that would remove someone as genuinely _good_ as Aang. But I just…couldn't. I could feel all my grief and pain for my friend casually brushed aside by the part of me that could only fixate on the fact that The Avatar was gone—the part of me that could only feel the world tilting on its axis. The earthbender in me.

I had never hated being a bender, not once in my entire life, until that moment.

_The Avatar dies, The Avatar is reborn._

"Toph, are you okay?"

I would like to say that it was my grief that was finally able to break its was through the numbness inside me, but it wasn't. With Suki's words every ounce of jealousy I had ever held for her returned a hundred fold. She would cry when she found out. Sokka and her both would be devastated at the loss of their friend and their grief would be pure.

They weren't benders. They would never have to _know_ deep inside them that Aang's death meant so much less than the passing of The Avatar. Would never have to choke back bile at the very thought while having another part of them believe it without question.

"Toph?"

Oh, Sokka. It was selfish of me but at that moment all I had wanted was for Katara to have been with us on that airship. She would have felt it, would have wailed and sobbed and _known _and maybe—_maybe_—been strong enough to not have to fight to separate her grief for Aang from the hammer-blow devastation of The Avatar's passing. And Sokka would have taken one look at her and understood what had happened. It would have spared me having to say the words when the wound was so fresh.

_The Avatar dies, The Avatar is reborn._

"It's over. Aang's gone."

Of course, I didn't know the details. Didn't know then that we had won the war, didn't know that when we landed to collect the body we would find someone else—alive but broken, didn't know that I would protect Phoenix King Ozai from Sokka's vengeance because it was what _Aang_ would have wanted. And at that moment I had needed something to affirm to myself that I loved _Aang_, my friend, more than The Avatar.

But I saw in his eyes that he understood what I was saying. Saw it in the tears that sliced violently down his face.

"The Avatar Dies…"

His voice broke before he could continue.

***


End file.
